If pundits weren't so regularly stupid I'd almost think this was paid for propaganda.
If pundits weren't so regularly stupid I'd almost think this was paid for propaganda.
It's like one of those stupid DIY 5 minutes tiktoks
When I was relatively young, my mom was against violence and wanted me to talk things out with some kids that were bullying me. Things didn't improve until I beat a few of them up. Putin has implied he's cornered and therefore overly aggressive in a story from his childhood where he's chasing a huge rat. We need to slam the door on his nose.
When my kid was being bullied we went through all the usual channels, tell teachers etc. Then when all that was done and it carried on I told him to hit them. Got a call from school about it, told them they should have handled it, should not have been left up to my 9 year old but their inaction caused it. Told them that I had told my son that no matter what school said he did the right thing.
It's not about letting the agressor win, it's about fight back without losing your city.
Right know Putin could just bomb the Kyiv to ashes.
Resistance fighters lose against an occupier at something like a 10:1 ratio - against the resistance. They lose on average 10 members for every occupation kill. You can prove this to yourself - what did the US lose in Afgahnistan vs the Taliban? For how many years?
You should always try and win the conventional war if you can do win at a better rate then that - which the Ukraine is.
Fighting for freedom is glamorized as some wholesome star wars rebellion where the good guys always win. In practice the dynamic often gets incredibly ugly and whatever victory there is to have is Pyrrhic at best.
The way to fight a guerilla is to oppress harder, to break the population, to systematically ransack and destroy anything beautiful, monuments, cultural icons, anything that gives identity or a cause to fight back until there is nothing left but rubble.
It's real easy to sit in an armchair halfway across the world and say it's worth sacrificing everything for freedom. But yeah, maybe this is worth it, I don't presume to know. Drawn out guerilla war comes at the sort of cost nobody other than Ukraine gets to decide whether they think it's worth it.
Agree
I wonder if they think that it would have been better not to fight against Hitler as well?
Never because likely NATO has got his back, which the same NATO isn't giving Ukraine when they expressly demand NATO assistance.
> What did it feel like? Were you tempted to consider surrender in return for cessation of hostilities?
That must certainly feels like a betrayal for Ukrainians.